Cipher
by Narissa
Summary: Blamed for the destruction caused by the D Reaper, some of the Tamers have since become fugitives.  Now on a mission to clear their names and fight for their freedom, the Tamers face off against countless enemies and overwhelming odds.  Jurato, Ryuki.
1. STL453

Pilot for a Maybe-Project I was thinking of. Enjoy.

-N

* * *

Ryo ran—fast. He had no idea what was being fired at him—bullets, digimon attacks, shrapnel—but he was smart enough to know that stopping to take a look would get him killed—or worse.

_You know the world sucks when there even _is_ a 'worse'_.

"Kazu!" Ryo growled. "You told me to go left!"

Ryo was wired with a headset—a two-way communicator. Henry had put it together—it was handy…when his partner would give him the right directions.

There was a second of static before Kazu's voice came through. "That's what the layout says—don't take it out on me that this data's old."

"Yeah, it just gets me killed, that's all." Ryo muttered. "I swear I'll—"

"Duck." Kazu cut him off.

Ryo ducked immediately, a sharp piece of metal flying over his head.

"Thanks." He murmured. As much crap as he gave Kazu, he was a good partner. That's the way the jobs went—for each person on the field, there was one watching their every step. Back when Ryo first got involved in all this, he was a little hesitant to have Kazu as his partner. Actually, he only agreed to it at first because on the first mission, it was Ryo who was watching over Kazu and Guardromon, and he knew they could use the support.

The corridor he was running through was—_bright_. And big. The lighted pattern on the walls seemed to dance as he passed by them—and maybe they really were, but Ryo was sure it was just because he was running so much that the blood was rushing to his head.

Ryo didn't need to look back to know that Cyberdramon was less than a second behind him—it must have been tough for the big guy…Cyberdramon could obviously move faster than Ryo ever could, but Ryo understood why his partner was choosing to stay back a bit—because if Ryo were to go down, Cyberdramon could just pick him up. Good enough for Ryo.

The lights on the walls started to get brighter, and only the 'floor' he ran on remained unlit. His eyes were getting sore, he was running out of breath, and every muscle in his body was screaming at him to take a damn break.

Clearly, taking a break wasn't an option. If things had gone according to plan, maybe he could have, but—

_Well, it could be worse. Not by _much_, but it could be worse._

The wrong turn Ryo'd made had set off a few alarms—which gave Ryo a few dozen digimon chasing him at top speed.

So, there were digimon behind him, automated defenses along the walls, and a sweet woman's voice repeating her notice that an intruder was on the premises. Not to mention who-knows-what in front of him.

_Fantastic._

He cursed under his breath when a bullet—yeah, turned out they _were_ bullets—grazed the side of his left shoulder. His step faltered, but he maintained a quick pace. Ryo saw Cyberdramon move up beside him, but Ryo held up his hand in protest. As long as he could move on his own, he didn't endanger Cyberdramon any further.

In the very worst case, they'd biomerge and go down fighting. Of course, Ryo wasn't exactly ready to die—not yet. Before everything started—in _simpler_ days, he'd promised himself he wouldn't die from anything other than boredom. And he still had plenty of things to keep himself busy with—the pissed off digimon and the scratch in his shoulder included.

Ryo wasn't particularly worried about his injury, though—as long as he was injured in the _digital world_, the healing process would be fast.

After the D-Reaper was defeated, the city of Shinjuku rebuilt—no point in bitching about what happened. Ryo approved of that. What he _didn't_ approve of was what happened after a portal to the digital world was found, and a digimon emerged in the real world before tearing down a building.

People got bitchy again. They got scared. And they blamed the first person they could think of—Jeri Kato.

_But don't worry, it gets worse._

And who _led_ the charge against her? The Chief Executive Officer of the Hypnos Corporation, Mr. Mitsuo Yamaki. At some point, he'd been their ally. One of the few people they could trust. But he'd turned on Jeri even quicker than the rest of the country had. Hypnos went back to what it was—a method of 'containing' the digital 'threat'. It took hold of all the known portals, and expanded their territories to inside the digital world itself. To 'clear' the digital world of threats.

Takato disappeared. So did Jeri. Ryo'd spent two months thinking they'd been caught or killed. Until he got a message from Takato's e-mail account, telling him they needed to meet. Ryo'd thought it was a prank, but he went anyways. He _continued_ to think it was a prank when he went there, only to find Henry, instead of Takato. But it wasn't a prank—Henry had known where Takato and Jeri were hiding all along—in the digital world, of course.

Jeri was the 'bad guy'. In the public's eye, at least. That made Takato a bad guy, too. But the two of them were the fugitives—Ryo and Henry were still able to live in the real world just fine, so long as their involvement with the criminals was kept quiet.

_Criminals_.

That's what the papers called them. Everyone remembered a particular speech Yamaki had given shortly after it became clear to the public that Takato and Jeri were both alive.

"These ciphers…while we may not understand their goals, we understand them. We understand that they wish to corrupt our very society, our values, and our families. While they may be young, we must remember that they are dangerous and they are criminals."

'Ciphers'. It meant that they were nothing. Nobodies. Powerless. It had just been out of spite, but Takato had named the group just that—Cipher.

The goal was simple—take down Hypnos.

That's what Ryo was busy doing—taking a portal back. The digimon at his back? Reconditioned to behave as mindless guards—they'd snap out of it if Ryo didn't get himself killed. The guns on the walls? Hypnos' defenses. But Ryo wasn't allowed to fight back—those were the orders. The base had to be kept intact. The more complexes Hypnos lost, the weaker they got. The more complexes that Cipher took over, the more powerful they became. A simple enough plan—and Ryo was lucky enough to be doing the grunt work.

The end of the hallway was in sight, but there was something standing in his way. The mission was supposed to be bloodless—aside from Ryo's own blood, anyways. But if that thing didn't get out of Ryo's way, he wouldn't have a choice.

He snatched the D-Arc from his belt. He still hadn't decided whether or not to biomerge or slash a card, but in either case, it was just the tool he needed.

"I'm coming up on something." Ryo said, hoping Kazu was paying attention to what was in front rather than what was behind.

"It's Gargomon." Kazu said simply.

_Thank you, Henry._

"Cyberdramon, go right." Ryo ordered as the sight of the oversized green bunny became clearer.

Ryo himself moved to the left as Gargomon raised his two gatling arms.

"Gargo laser!" Gargomon shouted, a barrage of blasts firing from every barrel of the two guns.

Ryo didn't look back but he could hear the attacks destroying the digimon that had been chasing him, while Cyberdramon joined in the assault. Ryo was getting a little lightheaded, and once he was past Gargomon, he started to fall forward—

—it was Henry who caught him, standing him up quickly. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and a pair of beige cargo pants.

"You okay?" his friend asked.

Ryo nodded, indicating his shoulder. Henry examined it, pushing the skin next to the wound with his thumb. Ryo winced as the pain sharply shot down his arm.

"Sorry." Henry murmured, before quickly turning away. "Takato, Ryo's been injured. How quickly can you get him extracted?"

"I'm fine." Ryo insisted, though the look Henry gave him told Ryo that he wasn't convinced. "Kazu, forward my vitals to Takato."

"On it." His friend replied promptly.

Henry still looked skeptical, but he eventually nodded as Takato must have been telling him something. Henry and Takato were on a separate channel than Ryo and Kazu were—Takato could speak to Ryo just as Kazu could speak to Henry, but it typically wasn't something they did.

"Alright." Henry said finally.

Ryo didn't want him to worry, though. "Look at it this way—it's quicker to finish up the mission than to pull me back at this point, right? We're almost done."

Henry looked more relaxed that time. "Yeah, you're right." He agreed. "Just don't overexert yourself, okay?

"When have I ever got in over my head?" Ryo asked smugly.

_Okay, bad example._

"No comment." Kazu said smugly.

"Right." Henry winced.

Back to work. The sooner they finished up, the sooner they could get out of there. "Kazu, where to now?"

"About two hundred meters down the corridor, there'll be a door on the right."

Ryo nodded to himself, glancing at Henry, waiting for Takato to tell him the same information.

"On our way." Ryo reported, starting down the hallway. Gargomon and Cyberdramon had taken out everything that had been chasing Ryo—which was probably why Henry wasn't talking: Takato was probably giving him an earful.

_Whatever. He can do this shit himself if it has to be done so perfectly._

The pain in Ryo's shoulder had subsided, and he was grateful for it.

"Coming?" Ryo called back to Henry, who still appeared to be getting a lecture from Takato.

Henry just nodded and started walking. They both knew that if they made any discontented facial expressions, Takato and Kazu would see.

Not that Ryo disliked Takato in any way. In fact, Ryo had a great deal of respect for him—tossing aside his comfortable life to protect Jeri. It was very Romeo-and-Juliet, in the everyone-gets-screwed-over sort of way.

What bugged Ryo was how the mission had barely progressed. Sure, in taking down the few bases that they had, they'd also gained access to some of Hypnos' funds, but it wasn't as intrinsically rewarding as it should have been. Still Ryo was making better money than he would be waiting tables or flipping burgers.

"Having a good time yet?" Ryo asked cheerfully, earning a surprised smile from Henry.

"Oh, of course." Henry played along. "I'd actually start looking for apartments down here if, you know, the walls weren't randomly shooting at us."

_Right. Gotta be careful for that one, huh?_

"Now you're just being pessimistic." Ryo insisted, his obvious sarcasm at least _sounding_ genuine. "Think of it as—special real estate? I mean, come on. Who needs a home gym when you get your cardio workout dodging digital guards?"

Henry laughed, involving himself in the joke more and more. "Yeah, and it's like a psychological workout, too. See how long before all the adrenaline drives you crazy." He whistled, impressed. "Yeah. An apartment down here would definitely be worth the extra rent."

"Are you two done?" Kazu demanded.

"You're just jealous that there's sarcasm afoot and you're missing out." Ryo countered.

"Duh." Kazu answered.

"We'll bring you a souvenir, Kazu." Henry reassured him.

Ryo honestly would have, if there was anything at all _to _take. Hell, Ryo'd probably end up breaking off a doorknob for him. That'd be appropriate.

Ryo and Henry were coming up on the door that they'd been directed to. It was large and steel—unfortunately, no handle Ryo could have Cyberdramon break off for Kazu.

_Better luck next time._

There was a slot next to the door to swipe a keycard with. They'd managed to get a hold of a few of them—various bribes using the money they made from taking over places like where Ryo was then. Henry pulled the card from his pocket and reached towards the slot.

"Wait!" Kazu shouted.

"Stop!" Ryo relayed, incase Kazu hadn't had time to switch his broadcast to both of them.

_Too late._

An alarm sounded, and two long metal pieces barred the door closed. It had been locked down.

"What's going on?" Henry asked.

"Kazu, what the hell just happened?" Ryo demanded, looking around nervously.

"_Fuck!_" Kazu screamed in frustration.

"That's very poetic, but I'm not finding it especially useful right now." Ryo retorted dryly.

Ryo looked over to Henry, who _did_ have an answer. "My card was demagnetized on the way in from one of the attacks I _thought_ I avoided." Henry reported.

_Damn it…_

"And what's coming after us now?" Ryo asked, knowing he didn't _want_ the answer.

"Everything." Kazu answered.

Ryo looked at the door. It had been reinforced on the outside, and with his luck, on the inside as well. They wouldn't be able to force it open, not even if they both biomerged. Still…if they _could_ get to the other side, they'd be able to shut down the base's defenses, and all the digimon coming after them would return to normal. _That_ was their best bet—even if it was a long shot.

"Fight, or flight?" Ryo asked, wanting the opinions of both Kazu and Henry.

A silent second.

"Backup's coming."

Ryo shook his head, frustrated. "Yeah, we were over that. I think you described it as 'everything' that was coming after us?"

Kazu sounded irritated. "No, _your_ backup."

_We have backup?_

Ryo's thoughts were cut short by an explosion. At first, he thought the digimon had attacked. But it came from the ceiling, and he realized that something above had blown a hole in it. And it jumped down.

_Sakuyamon._

The mega-level landed on one knee, before standing up and devolving into her two component parts. Renamon, and Rika Nonaka.

"Y'see, they convince us that this whole mission is gonna be a sausage-fest, then surprise us with two beautiful women." Ryo exclaimed, ignoring Rika and Renamon entirely and speaking directly to Henry. "_This_ is why I love these missions."

Seeing that he managed to get a smile out of Rika from his compliment, he approached her promptly and kissed her hard—Henry and Renamon both looking somewhere between 'uncomfortable' and 'annoyed'.

"Behave yourself, Ryo." Jeri's voice came through after a half-second of static.

"Down, boy." Kazu ordered.

He pulled away, Rika smirking at him.

Henry stepped forward. "Yeah, so, real romantic, making out before we get blasted to pieces," he grumbled. "But I'm actually single right now, and I'd rather not die alone, so how about we get something—say, a plan, maybe?"

Rika reached into her back pocket, presenting a keycard that looked identical to the one Henry had. She strutted over to the door, inserting the card into the slot Henry had tried moments ago.

The alarms stopped, and Ryo felt himself relax.

Ryo knew that Rika was a part of Cipher. She was brought in about the same time that Ryo had, actually. They'd started to date just before, and it wasn't _really_ working out…but the constant risk of death did wonders for their relationship. Aside from that, they'd determined that both of them were happier with their lives when they had a purpose—something that briefly disappeared after the D-Reaper's defeat.

She was wearing some dark green low-rise jeans, black boots, a black tanktop, and a denim jacket that matched the color of her pants. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, which hung just below the level of her shoulders.

"Hey, Jeri?"Rika said into her microphone, ignoring Ryo and Henry. "If Kazu and Takato are nearby, you might want to throw some garbage at them for almost botching this job."

She turned back to Ryo and Henry. "You know, the two of you make this look so much harder than it needs to be." Rika said with a sigh.

Ryo thought quickly. "Maybe, but _we_ didn't have to biomerge to make it this far." Ryo said, shaking his head as he pretended to be disappointed.

Henry made a face, indicating the hole in the ceiling she'd blasted through. "And we've been a little less, uh, 'theatric' about it."

Rika winced. "Yeah, tell Takato I'm sorry 'bout that one."

Ryo hoped that he wouldn't be pissed about it. They _had_ been instructed to damage the property as little as possible, but the way Ryo saw it, was that it was pretty much necessary.

It was Renamon who spoke next, in her usual cool demeanor. "Can we please get moving?"

"Looks like." Henry answered, staring at the door as it opened, the slot spitting Rika's card back out.

There didn't look to be any security in the next room—something Ryo wasn't used to. Still, he'd take what safety he could get. The room was filled with large computer terminals. It was all definitely human technology imported to the digital world, but it was much too sophisticated for Ryo.

_I guess that's why they sent Henry along on this one._

It was usually Takato on the missions, with Henry on backup. This was actually only Ryo's third mission, but it was his first with Henry. Or Rika, for that matter.

Henry headed over to a particular terminal that Ryo didn't think looked any different from the others—though, he wasn't in a position to make that claim.

"Any idea how much we're getting paid off this one?" Ryo asked casually while Henry got to work. It wasn't that Ryo was just in it for the money—he really did care about the cause, even if he didn't think it was a goal they'd actually achieve. Still, as long as he was able to visit the real world freely, having money was pretty fun.

"A few grand a piece, I'd say." Kazu reported.

"You're getting paid the same?" Ryo asked. He didn't mean to sound so offended by it, but since he was talking to Kazu, Ryo at least found comfort in the fact that everything was taken in stride.

"Yeah, I think most of it comes from having to put up with you this whole time." Kazu answered thoughtfully.

Ryo grinned to himself, before walking up to Rika, taking both of her hands in his.

"They didn't tell me _you_'d be here." He teased.

She shrugged, smirking. "Lucky for you, right?"

He wanted to kiss her, but he didn't. Kazu, Takato, and Jeri were all doing their jobs—meaning that Ryo and Rika had an audience—and he didn't feel up to listening to their reports that he didn't look like a good kisser, or that his form was off, which he knew was the kind of joke they'd make.

_Well, if Takato had much of a sense of humor these days he might. _

After everything, Takato had become pretty single-minded. Take down Hypnos. That was all that mattered to him. Protecting Jeri was on the list too, of course…but the destruction of Hypnos was the key step in leading to that. All he wanted to was to let her be able to have a normal life back in the real world…something that couldn't happen while she was one of the most wanted people in the world. They both were.

Hell, even Ryo could find himself in a heap of trouble for associating with them—as far as the world was concerned, they were terrorists.

"So what are you doing tonight?" Ryo asked her.

"Atta boy, Tiger." Kazu snickered. "The trick is to make your move when there's four other people paying attention. Awesome."

Rika looked thoughtful, though Ryo knew she probably would have punched Kazu if he hadn't been transmitting only to Ryo.

"Calc homework." She concluded. "Why?"

Ryo scoffed. "Let's go see a movie. Good way to start the weekend off."

"It's Thursday." Henry and Kazu answered, though Henry sounded slightly more distracted.

_Shit._

"Okay." Ryo muttered. "Calculus homework it is."

There was a flash of green light, and Gargomon devolved back to Terriermon, climbing onto Henry's shoulder. Ryo's mood sank considerably. He had a deep cut in his shoulder, several guards out to kill him, the threat of being exposed as a terrorist, _and_ he had school in the morning. Great.

"See if Henry needs any help." Kazu suggested. "The quicker we get you out of there, the better."

_Good point_.

Ryo turned away from Rika and started towards Henry, who was knelt down, doing something to some wires.

"Anything I can help with?" Ryo asked doubtfully.

"These motherframes are different from the ones I was expecting." Henry explained. "I can still drain their accounts and forward the systems back to Takato, but there won't be anything stopping Hypnos from just re-opening the portal from their side."

"So what do we need?" Ryo asked.

"I don't know." Henry sighed. "We need a way of inhibiting the control that they already have in the real world before I can stop their control here in the digital world."

Rika stepped over, looking uneasy. "Is there any way you can do what you can now, then finish the changes after we're out of here?"

Henry shook his head. "I could, but it'd be too risky. Hypnos could just take it back—"

"—not to mention trace us back to base." Kazu finished.

There was a long pause. Ryo was trying to avoid saying what he knew was an alternative—destroy the portal generator. It was certainly some expensive technology, but if it meant it would make them safer—

"What're the orders, Boss?" Henry asked aloud, defeated.

Ryo heard a click as Takato switched his channels to speak with the three of them together. "It's more important that Hypnos _not _have this facility than it is that _we _have it. Destroy the gen—"

"—Can we cut the power?" Rika interrupted suddenly. The two boys turned to her, prompting her to elaborate. "If we can drain the power out of this place, all the gadgets'll still work, we can leave without worrying about Hypnos coming back—and then Henry can have all the time he needs to work. Yes or no?"

She spoke with excitement, though it was obvious that she was also unsure of herself. Henry was the expert in the field—any ideas Ryo or Rika had would just be speculation. Ryo turned to Henry anxiously, silently praying that Rika was right.

_Nope._

The look on Henry's face was enough indication, but it was Kazu who answered.

"We need power on location if we're gonna pull you guys out." Kazu explained. "We blow the generator, you'd better get ready for a nice long stay there."

_Definitely not happening._

Ryo looked at Henry, who seemed to be running some calculations through his head. "It takes about five minutes for Hypnos to open up a portal, but we can do it in three if we've got a good transit spot." He declared finally. "We set a timer for just under that so Hypnos can't deactivate it, and we can get out of here before the power shuts down."

"Works for me." Rika shrugged.

Ryo nodded, but he knew that the bottom line was that it was Takato's call, not Ryo's.

"Kazu," Takato said finally. "Scan for the best location for us to open up a portal."

"Checking…" Ryo heard Kazu reply. Several seconds passed. "Coordinates—S-T-L-four-five-three. It's close to them."

It was good news—something Ryo welcomed.

"_How_ close, exactly?" Rika asked nervously.

"Up a floor, and on the other side of the complex." Jeri answered. "Should be a quick trip with that 'shortcut' you made."

She was referring, of course, to the gaping hole Rika had blown in the floor when she made her grand entrance.

"It was _your_ idea." Rika protested mockingly.

"Okay." Takato concluded. "We'll start opening up the portal now—what do you need to set your timer, Henry?"

"I think—yeah, I've got it done already." Henry answered. "Ready to start the timer on your order."

Again, another pause. Ryo really didn't like them. He knew that it meant Takato, Kazu, and Jeri were talking—and purposely keeping Ryo, Rika, and Henry in the dark.

"Don't let the ice cream melt, now." Ryo grumbled impatiently, waiting for a response, getting a snicker from Rika.

Several seconds passed before Takato gave his order—"We're detecting a microphone nearby. Get on Hypnos's speakers, and order an evacuation first."

_What?_

"Uh, why?" Ryo asked, confused.

"We don't know what cutting the power will do to them on their end."

Ryo was impressed, and even a little surprised. Even after Hypnos had made their lives a living hell, Takato and Jeri still didn't want to hurt the _people_ who worked at Hypnos. Ryo, however, didn't necessarily agree—they were at war. _He_ was willing to get hurt in the line of duty—if the good ol' folks at Hypnos weren't, then they shouldn't be working for Hypnos, now should they.

But Ryo said nothing, and neither did Henry. He knew that Henry probably agreed with Takato and Jeri, but Henry was calculating enough to know that the risk-to-reward ratio was questionable, at best.

Henry picked up the microphone that Takato had mentioned, tracing the wire to a tangled mess. He unplugged a few ports, reconnecting them in different locations, before standing up.

"Who wants this one?" Henry asked.

"I'm masking your voices from here, so don't worry about them tracing you." Kazu reassured them.

Ryo glanced at Rika before she shrugged, picking up the microphone.

"Attention, Hypnos employees…" Rika spoke politely in a fake but very convincing English accent. "This complex is now under the control of the Cipher Organization. Any attempts to activate the portal at this location again will be met with lethal force."

He looked at his friends. Rika was still clearly riding the adrenaline wave, displaying a grin proudly on her face. Henry just smirked.

The next person Ryo heard speak was Kazu. "You enjoyed that a little too much."

Ryo nodded in agreement. He squeezed her hand gently. She looked at him, puzzled.

"Don't want you falling behind, now."

She scoffed. "Yeah, that's _really _a possibility." She replied, her tone the epitome of pure sarcasm.

"I want in on this." Henry said suddenly. Ryo knew it was probably pissing Takato off, getting Henry to be playful when he was on the job, but it was fun.

"Now we're talking." Terriermon cheered.

"Rika," Renamon said carefully. "We'll have to hurry. Remaining downwind from Terriermon wouldn't be a very good idea."

Henry flicked a lever and darted out of the room, Terriermon in his arms. Ryo hadn't realized that the timer had started before Rika and Renamon too and begun to chase after. Henry hadn't even yelled 'go' or anything.

_Cheaters._

Ryo jumped onto Cyberdramon's back, and they were off.

* * *

Okay, so I admit it. Writing this was just a distraction from a) finishing my homework, and b) working on Code Carter's chapter 26.

Review if you didn't hate it!

-N


	2. One Man Behind

So, yeah. Didn't actually expect anyone to want another chapter of this story. This chapter drops a lot of the lighter atmosphere of the last one for the purpose of filling in the rest of the backstory.

It's also just to show the kind of attitudes they've had to adapt.

-N

* * *

As much as Rika was hell-bent on not becoming a model, she was becoming a damn good actress. So good, in fact, that the entire country didn't know she was acting. She sat at the booth, on the far end of it. To her left was Alexia Hoskins, Rika's thirty-something year old publicist. It was her idea that Rika oh-so-frequently go on the air and badmouth Cipher and their activities. Of course, it was Takato that Rika _actually_ listened to. The more often she went on the air and pretended to weep about missing her friends, the less suspicion there would be on her and Ryo, and it even gained a minor amount of sympathy from the general public. Rika wasn't actually sure what Alexia _did_, as Rika's mother had hired her. Rika was pretty sure that Alexia thought she was managing Rika's career as a—as a _something_, anyways. Rika herself was more concerned about graduating high school, and not being exposed as a terrorist spy, brutally tortured and executed.

_Just regular girl stuff._

Left of Alexia was Jana Asako. Asako was of the CEO of a software company that shared the same name. Probably invested a lot of money into Hypnos, since she was out for blood as much as anyone else. Rika had no doubt that a great deal of the money Cipher had stolen had originally been hers before she started funding Hypnos. She was an older lady, in her late fifties, maybe early sixties. Apparently she was very fond of both Rika and Ryo, though Rika never could quite figure out why. Rika, Ryo, Jana, and her husband had had dinner together several times, and things were always uncomfortably quiet. She had a daughter, Veronica, who was Rika's age, but Rika had only met her a few times. Either way, Rika didn't really care—Asako was allied with Hypnos—she was a bad guy.

Sitting next to Asako was Mitsuo Yamaki. Now, Rika didn't consider herself a hateful person anymore, but she had a birthday coming up in a few months, and if someone were to give her Yamaki's head in a box, she'd sport braided pigtails and skip down the streets. She hated the man—and the worst part was that she had to smile sweetly whenever he made eye contact with her, and pretend to agree with whatever lie he spewed about Takato and Jeri.

Left of Yamaki were two government officials that hadn't said anything the entire conference. Rika hadn't even been introduced to them, but she had no doubt that in a few hours they'd be commending her bravery for taking a stand against the dangerous organization.

Rika had one hand on top of the other, which was on top of a file folder identical to the ones in front of Alexia, Asako, Yamaki, and the two men in suits. Eighteen pages of bullshit. The first several detailed an attack on a warehouse in the Kabukicho district the night before, in which two workers were killed. The report included references to several armed men attacking unarmed civilians in the name of the Cipher organization. Rika knew for a fact that Cipher wasn't involved in the attack, because Rika herself had been busy breaking into one of Hypnos's facilities with Takato and mapping it out. There hadn't been anything worth stealing there, but Henry had reason to believe it shared the layout with the facility Kazu would be infiltrating while Rika sat there listening to all that garbage.

She didn't know if the attack had been entirely made up, or if it had just been a random crime that Hypnos blamed on Cipher—or if someone actually _had_ done it in the name of the organization. All the media buzz went on and on about how Cipher was dangerous, and how they were all killers, and so on, and Rika began to wonder if some psychopaths actually supported that image. Rika, Ryo, Takato, Jeri, Kazu, and Henry—none of them had _ever_ taken a human life. But it sure didn't matter to the rest of the world.

* * *

"Hold up." Ryo murmured, watching Kazu crouch against a wall.

He turned to another monitor, watching the patrolling digimon continue his march, out of Kazu's way.

"Okay." Ryo confirmed. "Hang a left here."

His eyes were getting sore, staring at the various monitors around him. There were nine, but only six he really needed to pay attention to. One displayed the layout of the facility, with various colored dots representing anything alive in there—the blue one was Kazu. Another screen displayed all the unprocessed data Kazu had gathered—it was impossible to gather its full meaning just by looking at it, since it was mostly numbers and letters that Henry would have to decrypt later. The other screens showed various security camera feeds around the facility.

While most of their missions varied, the preparation work mostly stayed the same—first, they'd get the layout of the building, through whatever means—bribes, hacking, or maybe even a full mission itself. Then, Henry would hack into the security feeds, and override them with looped footage—so that when a Cipher operative walks in front of a camera, all anybody that's watching sees is the same nothing that happened a week ago. Ryo knew that Jeri had also been taught how to control the feeds, and he'd heard rumors that Henry'd also been teaching Rika, though she changed the subject whenever he brought it up.

The trickiest part was getting through the front door—they couldn't portal in, since it would attract attention—no way to hide that kind of energy output—it was strictly an exit strategy. It usually involved stealth, brute force, or both. Usually they stuck with non-lethal methods—tranquilizers, gases, that sort of thing. The facilities that Cipher was interested in were all in the digital world, and it was therefore always digimon that they were dealing with, so the serums had been specifically designed to incapacitate them.

The dart guns held nine rounds each, and Kazu had two with him. Usually an operative only took one, but Kazu was doing the mission solo—Guardromon wasn't with him. Stealth missions were typically something that Rika covered, with Jeri monitoring her. They usually did an exceptional job, too—a key part of that being that Renamon was the best among them suited for stealth. That, and because Rika and Jeri knew each other so well, they didn't even have to stop to evaluate the best way to do something considering the operative's skills.

Takato or Ryo usually handled the muscle work—Ryo because Cyberdramon never left any witnesses, and Takato because Guilmon was the only one that didn't have to worry about being seen. Since Takato was already identified, there was less pressure than there were on the rest of them.

Henry obviously handled the technical processes that Ryo couldn't pronounce. He'd fine-tuned all the hardware and software that Ryo was using, and had put together most—well, _all_ of the equipment they used in their missions. He was partnered with Takato—something Ryo had taken to teasing him about frequently, as Takato wasn't the easiest person to work with.

Jeri covered intelligence. What types of things to look out for in each base, and the occasional snooping through Hypnos communications. It was probably also something to pass the time—she didn't have much else to do between missions, since she couldn't return to the real world.

Kazu's specialty was basically to take things apart. It required a lot more finesse than it sounded—not all of the programs and tools and everything that Cipher used against Hypnos were as easy to use as popping in a disc. As much difficulty as Kazu had _using_ machines sometimes, he had a clear understanding of how they worked, and always seemed to know just which wires to pull. Rika's first field mission was to steal the prototype for the portal generator, something that had made getting into future missions a whole lot easier, since they didn't have to plan for a long trip there and back. Rika had gone in with Kazu, while Ryo and Jeri monitored. Rika got them to the room they needed, and Kazu took out the toy surprise—go team.

Kazu's mission wasn't to take something apart that time, though—the facility was being powered by a new type of power supply, some kind of battery. Supposedly very efficient, and therefore very useful. Takato wanted one, and Kazu volunteered to smuggle out the blueprints.

Ryo watched as Kazu scurried down the hallway. He'd _literally_ just woken up before the mission started, so he was wearing some dark green plaid pajama bottoms, a black t-shirt with Henry's brown jacket over it, and a ball cap. Not exactly the James Bond kind of style Kazu so frequently liked to compare himself to.

Something caught Ryo's attention on one of the monitors—a patrolling Gekomon—anthropomorphic frog with giant eyes and a musical horn around his neck. Ryo always found those things to be freaky-looking.

"Hold." Ryo warned as Kazu approached the intersection in the hallway. Ryo bit his lip, evaluating the situation. Gekomon wasn't much of a threat—but if it blew that horn, Kazu would have a whole lot of attention on him.

_Darts don't kick in right away, either…it would still have time to call for help._

"In about twenty seconds, a Gekomon is going to walk past you from the hallway to your right." Ryo started. "He's on the side of the hall closest to you. On my mark, I want you to swing around. Put your hand in its mouth, grab it by the jaw—its teeth aren't sharp. That'll stop it from being able to sound that horn. Knock him out."

He saw Kazu grimace at the idea of putting his hand in the frog's mouth, but it was the safest bet.

"Ready…" Ryo saw Kazu nod. He paused, watching the Gekomon take three more steps. "Mark."

Kazu was swift, and still he barely managed to do it in time—but he got hold of the Gekomon's mouth before it could make a sound, and two punches later, it was unconscious.

"When was the last time I made _you_ do something that gross?" Kazu asked, shaking the saliva off his hand while giving the security camera the middle finger with the other.

Ryo gave it a thought. "Well, there was that one mission where you made me walk into that awful-smelling room so that the EbiBurgermons didn't smell a human."

"Yeah, that was pretty funny." Kazu snickered as he dragged the Gekomon back and hid him in a small alcove in the hallway. "Which way?"

Ryo was already staring at the layout. "Go straight, the third door on your right will take you to a staircase where you can go down."

"Got it." Kazu started to jog in the direction Ryo'd ordered. He glanced to his hand again. "I probably got some kind of frog-disease now, with my luck—do frogs carry rabies?"

"Probably not." Ryo reassured him.

The engineering bay was only two floors down. Frog-rabies aside, the mission was going great.

* * *

"Takato, and Jeri, please…" Rika said sorrowfully, making eye contact with the various reporters in the room. "Just turn yourselves in, and we can all work past this together."

Part of her wanted to laugh at how much of a lie it was, but most of her just wanted to throw up at the sympathetic sounds those people made—as if they actually gave a damn about the fact that two innocent people were being hunted down for something they had no control over.

One of the reporters, an old-looking man in a bad suit stood up, raising one hand as if asking for Rika's permission to speak. She smiled at him politely and gave a nod, wiping away a tear that wasn't actually there.

"Ms. Nonaka, why isn't Mr. Akiyama here with you today?"

_That's your question? My friends are wanted by the entire country because you people don't care about the truth, and you want to know about Ryo?_

She was getting good at smiling through her teeth.

"He sends his regards, but he isn't feeling particularly well this morning—or looking that great, to be completely honest." She smirked, that nauseous feeling returning with their quiet chuckles. "But he says that he hopes to see you all this Saturday at Mrs. Asako's launch party for her new screen-reading software."

She leaned forward a little bit to see past her agent, and flashed a smile at Asako before sitting back upright again. Her company had developed a new screen-reader for people with visual disabilities—it was supposed to be something revolutionary, and would be something adapted into all new web design. The advantage it provided over current screen-readers was that had a tag that could be added to basic page code that prioritized which text for it to read. Rika didn't know much about the details, but apparently most screen-readers that were already available didn't necessarily handle frames well, and would often repeat the names of the links before actually getting to the content the user required.

"Will you two be—" the man started again.

Rika was almost glad he was interrupted by the large door at the back of the room swinging open loudly. She saw a girl step through, about Rika's age—black hair that went to about the middle of her back, expensive clothes that Rika was pretty sure her mother had originally modeled for, and a file-folder in hand. It was Veronica Asako, the daughter of Jana.

"I'm sorry to intrude." She said sweetly—though she wasn't quite as good of an actress as Rika was. "But I've got something I need to speak with my mother and Mr. Yamaki about."

Her head tilted to one side, and she looked innocently at Yamaki. "Would that be alright with you, sir?"

Rika couldn't have seen Yamaki even if she _had_ leaned forward to see past Alexia and Asako, but she knew Yamaki wouldn't say no—even if Veronica _didn't_ have anything useful to say, he couldn't exactly be rude to her while his biggest sponsor was her mother.

"Yes, of course." Yamaki confirmed. "We'll reconvene in fifteen minutes."

There were loud shuffles as the reporters all left the room loudly, murmuring to one another and trading statements the others had missed.

Yamaki, Asako, and Veronica all moved to the side of the room to talk amongst each other, leaving Rika, Alexia, and the two men in suits, who Rika suspected wouldn't be very conversational.

She got that nervous feeling in her stomach—but she didn't know if she could go stand with the three to find out what was going on—she hadn't been invited to the conversation, but they weren't being particularly confidential about it, since she _was _in the room after all.

Rika closed her eyes, trying to listen in on what they were saying, tuning out whatever it was that Alexia was saying. Alexia was talking about Ryo, Veronica was talking about—W-A-T—

Her eyes opened quickly, and she reached for her phone from her purse, trying not to look as frantic as she felt.

_WATC-258_.

It was the name of the facility that Kazu and Ryo were breaking into. Something must have gone wrong.

She couldn't actually _phone_ him, since Hypnos would be more likely to trace it—she'd have to settle for a text message, since it would be bounced through her phone provider, where Hypnos would be less likely to notice it was going to the digital world. She typed the message quickly:

_I'll pick up dinner tonight._

A code—something she'd never send otherwise. Abort the mission, _now_.

They'd planned things like that, just in case. She and Ryo were at the greatest risk of being found out, since they were both always so public and so close to Hypnos and their affiliates.

She inhaled slowly, as Veronica left the room, flashing Rika a smile and a wave, which Rika returned.

_Please, be careful, you guys…_

* * *

"Yeah, the stairwell's just up ahead." Ryo confirmed.

"Anything I should be looking out for?" Kazu asked.

Ryo shook his head. "Those last two Gekomon are all on this floor—there's still some on the next, but the path from you to the engineering bay looks like it should be clear for another—minute and a half."

"Okay, good." Kazu replied, picking up his pace. Ryo hit a few buttons to rotate the cameras—new floor, new security cameras. Kazu was in the lower left screen, hurrying towards the lab, when—

"—Hold." Ryo ordered, as Kazu stopped and ducked behind a pillar. "A pair of the guards both just turned without completing their rounds…"

They were headed towards Kazu, but he still had time to figure something out. Ryo bit his lip, staring at the overall layout of the floor. There was a mostly empty-area just between the two guards, but they were headed the other way…

_Oh._

Ryo hit a few keys, and then held his breath for a few seconds. He watched as the lights went out in that sector, both of the guards turning back towards it to check it out.

"Okay, bought you some time." Ryo confirmed, Kazu once again breaking into a sprint, keeping himself low so as to make as little noise as possible.

He jumped at the sound of his phone vibrating on the desk.

"Geez." He muttered aloud, ashamed of being so jumpy.

"What now?" Kazu asked, nervous.

"Nothing." Ryo reassured him. "My phone's just making noises."

"They'll do that." Kazu replied sarcastically.

He'd check what the message was later—Kazu was just about to enter the engineering bay, and Ryo wanted to start activating the portal so that he wouldn't have to stick around any longer than absolutely necessary.

"What was that?" Kazu asked suddenly, freezing in place.

Ryo looked at the layout, and the monitors—he hadn't read anything wrong. Kazu was still standing in the same place, as if—

_No, he's not standing still…_

The video had frozen.

_Shit._

"Security feed's locked up." Ryo growled, trying to get it to update. "Portal generator's still going, though—it'll be in the room you're in, about two minutes from now."

"Okay." Kazu replied, the figure of him still displayed motionless on the screen.

At least the microphone was still operating fine—

—a thud, and then an electrical humming.

"_What_ is that noise?" Kazu asked, sounding more worried.

Ryo's attention was immediately caught by the screen of raw data, which has just begun scrolling the information twice as fast as it had before. Something had just happened to considerably increase the amount of data being transmit.

"Can you hear me?" Ryo called over the increasing static. "The portal will be open in ninety-three seconds, find cover and—"

What terrified Ryo then wasn't exactly a sound, it was the _lack_ of a sound—his terminal had shut down. There was no portal that would be created. No computers to see what was happening—and no way of communicating with Kazu.

_Oh, no, no, nonononono…_

There were three stations in the room, only one had shut down—Ryo rushed to the next one. He wasn't sure what exactly he was trying to do—for security purposes, his communication line with Kazu had been tied to that particular terminal, and would have terminated itself to prevent any attentive Hypnos employees from getting too nosey.

He carefully typed in the frequency he'd been communicating with Kazu on—nothing. He typed the number in again carefully—he'd memorized it, so it wasn't that he was entering the wrong numbers—

—it was that Kazu was completely isolated.

"No!"

In his panic, Ryo must have been making more noise than he'd realized he had—before he shouted, anyways…because Takato, Jeri, and Henry entered promptly, and they wouldn't have been there so quick unless they'd heard something sooner.

The fact that Ryo had nearly thrown the chair backwards when he stood up from the first terminal might have done it.

He was still trying to figure out what had happened, when he saw it—his phone. A call had come in right before the system started acting up. He quickly walked over to it and opened it up, ignoring the confused stares of his friends.

No missed calls. One unread text message.

_I'll pick up dinner tonight._

Rika. Their code. She'd been at a meeting with Yamaki, and must have learned something—something to prevent what had just happened. He'd been given a warning, and he'd ignored it.

"What's going on?" Takato asked cautiously, seemingly being careful not to set Ryo off.

Ryo had started pacing, his right hand covering his mouth as he breathed rapidly through his nose, as Henry rushed to examine the monitoring station that had failed.

"It's completely fried." Henry concluded, "I can fix it, but I'll—" the dark-haired boy paused. "Where's Kazu?"

Ryo felt the weight of their eyes on him, though that didn't stop him from pacing.

"We must have tripped some kind of security and not realized it…" Ryo muttered. "Yamaki must have found out, and—"

Ryo didn't have all the information, but he had enough to understand the picture—they'd been careless, and now Yamaki had Kazu.

"Yamaki trapped Kazu in there?" Jeri asked, horrified.

Ryo stopped in his tracks, meeting her eye, and nodded slowly.

_And it was my fault_.

Takato walked past Ryo, doing something on the second terminal. Ryo's mind was still in a blur, but he managed to put a sentence together.

"It's no good." He said. "We can't reestablish the connection with him."

Takato didn't acknowledge that Ryo had even spoke—at first, Ryo had thought that it was because he'd been careless during the mission, but he realized that Takato had _shut down_ the terminal, and had moved on to the third.

"What are you doing?" Ryo demanded, grabbing Takato's arm roughly. The shorter boy pulled it back, but Ryo didn't let go, and the two ended up staring daggers at each other.

"If Yamaki noticed our presence there," Takato explained calmly. "then he'll be looking for an open connection, and can trace it back here. I'm stopping that from happening."

The reality of it sunk in.

"You're going to leave him there." Ryo said aloud, the disbelief clear in his tone.

"Of course not." Takato replied, maintaining his composure, as if trying to be comforting. "We'll get him out once we understand the situation, but right now, I _need_ to stop Hypnos from following us."

Ryo, though, was _not_ in the mindset to be comforted, because he understood the risks—all of them did. Kazu would be tortured for information, and then killed. And seeing as how none of them had any kind of training to handle torture, leaving Kazu in there was _just_ as risky as going in immediately.

But however well-conceived and logical Ryo's argument was, it didn't express itself in the most elegant way. Instead, it came out as a swift left hook to Takato's face.

The former gogglehead did—did _something_, and wound up with a hold on Ryo's right wrist. He twisted, and before Ryo could immediately react, Takato had punched him twice and pushed him back. Ryo had known Takato'd been training his fighting skills with Henry to pass the time, but he hadn't even given it any thought to how far he'd progressed.

"Both of you stop it!" Jeri shouted, though it was clear to Ryo that neither he nor Takato was about to listen.

It had been a while since Ryo was in a real fight, and he sprung forward, tackling his 'leader'. On top of Takato, Ryo's only managed to punch twice more before Henry pulled him off, placing himself directly between the two.

Henry, the person who could kick _both_ their asses. He turned to Ryo, looking at him angrily. "Acting like an idiot's not going to get him back."

_Maybe. It's what got him _in_ this mess in the first place._

Henry turned to Takato, who had climbed to his feet, and gave Ryo an icy look over his shoulder. "What are we going to do about this?"

"Jeri and I will scan Hypnos's channels, find out where they're keeping him, and what they're going to do to him—"

"—we _know_ where he is." Ryo interrupted bitterly, earning himself a glare from Takato, and a look of some sort from Henry that was somewhere between 'don't worry', and 'shut up'.

"You go back to the real world, find Rika," Takato continued explaining to Henry, "she might know more than we do already."

_This is complete, and utter—_

"As for you," Takato said, pushing past Henry once more. "Get out of here, and come back once you can think straight."

Ryo managed to speak that time, though his lip felt as if it was puffing up from Takato's second punch.

"I'm _not_ going to leave him there." Ryo said flatly.

"And nobody's suggesting we do that—" Takato assured him.

"—It's exactly what you're suggesting." Ryo sighed. Even though he saw the irritation on Takato's face, Ryo didn't do anything about it—he'd been outvoted, and there was nothing he could do about it—Takato had already shut down the third terminal, and none of them would start up without his authorization.

"Ryo…" Jeri called as he neared the door.

He stopped, turned, and looked at each of them square in the eye. "I made a promise to keep him safe. And that promise is as good as if I made it to _any one of you_."

He'd had a bit of a temper tantrum after he made it back to his room. That being said, Ryo would need to find a new pair of lamps, fix the hole he punched in the wall, and pick up the various things he'd thrown all over the floor. His laptop was among them, but he was too angry to care to see if he'd broken it in his rage. After he'd burned out, he'd done the equally juvenile thing—he lay down on his bed and moped.

Maybe 'moped' wasn't exactly it. Brooded? Worried? Mostly he was just angry. At Yamaki for doing whatever he did to strand Kazu in there, angry at Takato for doing nothing about it, and angry at himself for being careless enough to _let_ it happen. If Ryo had run more scans, or paid more attention for some kind of sign, or answered his damned phone, or _anything_, the mess might never have happened.

Takato had said they were fighting a war—that everyone knew what they were signing up for. It was true. Though Ryo himself had never actually been tortured, he was, at least, mentally prepared for it. If it had been him who had been captured, Ryo wouldn't want the others to risk themselves. But that didn't mean that Ryo was at all prepared to abandon a friend, especially not to people who would hurt him.

He closed his eyes, a mild stinging sensation reminding him how tired he was. It had been about three hours since Takato had made the decision that Kazu would remain with Hypnos for the time being. Ryo had spent most of that time going over his options. He couldn't activate a portal to go in, since Takato had it sealed up. He couldn't travel to the facility directly, as it was several weeks worth of distance between him and there—time that Kazu simply didn't have. Unfortunately, Ryo wasn't a brilliant strategist by any means—his expertise was mostly in knocking things out of his way.

In that time, Ryo had only been able to come up with one idea, and he didn't like it. He'd threaten Takato. It was Ryo's only shot at making a deal—let Ryo go in to find Kazu, or Ryo would personally tell Yamaki everything about Cipher. It would be in Takato's best interests—if Ryo managed to save Kazu, Cipher wouldn't have lost any operatives that day. If Ryo went in and _didn't_ manage to save Kazu—well, the only way that would happen would be if Ryo were killed. And in that case, Takato's organization's secrets would die with him.

It probably wasn't the best plan ever thought up, but it was all Ryo had. The downside to it was that Takato knew Ryo very well, and he'd be able to call Ryo's bluff. Ryo could never turn Takato and Jeri over to Hypnos. Even if he wanted to, he didn't think he'd actually be able to.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Go die." Ryo muttered, not in the mood to hear what was in Cipher's best interests.

He heard the door open anyways. It was at that moment that Ryo realized that he really needed to find some friends who knew when to take a hint.

"Good morning to you, too, princess." Rika taunted.

He opened his eyes and sat up. She was still in the formal pantsuit she must have worn to attend the conference. An oversized woolen green purse stuck out like a sore thumb, sharply contrasting her image of a professional to the reality of a teenaged girl.

_How the hell did we end up living like this?_

Knowing it probably wasn't the time to go off onto that tangent, Ryo put the thought to the back of his mind.

"Love the new decorations." Rika noted, indicating the hole in the wall Ryo'd punched through.

"Thanks, I do my best." Ryo agreed bleakly.

Rika only smiled for a second before it faded, her eyes dropping guiltily to the floor. Ryo had thought he'd have to tell her what had happened, but he remembered she already knew—she'd tried to warn Ryo, but he hadn't been listening. That was what she was probably struggling over—thinking of a lie to tell Ryo to imply it wasn't his fault, when everyone knew it was.

"I heard what happened." The redhead said finally.

He just nodded, wishing she'd get on with it.

"Now, I hate to be the girlfriend who whines about the boy ignoring her calls, but you really shouldn't have." Rika said simply. "You know that only we have that number, and that none of us would bother you during a mission unless it was something important. These are the kind of mistakes we can't afford to make."

_Right. Rika doesn't typically go in circles before getting to her point._

It stung, but it was true, and Ryo knew he deserved it.

"I know." He said quietly. "I was stupid."

"So I hear, what with the shiner Takato's got." Rika went on with false enthusiasm.

The bad thing was that it actually made Ryo feel better that he'd at least given Takato a black eye.

"Seemed like the thing to do." Ryo murmured, more to himself than to her.

"Oh, I know. You didn't manage to give him the black eye, that was all me." Rika's demeanor changed. "You hit like a girl."

He smirked to himself through the guilt, glad that at least he wasn't the only one furious with Takato. But the smile went away, and he met Rika's gaze.

"We _left_ him in there." Ryo whispered. He shook his head a little. "Doesn't seem right."

"It's not." Rika agreed, pulling her bag off her shoulder and pulling out a familiar-looking device the size of a tin of coffee. "Now let's get him back."

Ryo wasn't quite sure what he was looking at. It looked like she'd ripped it from the inside of a car. He had no idea what it was, or how it was supposed to help get Kazu back. Fortunately, Rika noticed his confusion when she handed it to him.

"I stole this from a Hypnos facility my first mission." Rika said slowly, as if nervous.

_Click. Goddamn it I'm stupid._

Ryo knew what the chunk of metal he held was. The original portal generator. All the ones developed by Henry—all of the ones in Cipher's control room—they all were replicas of the original design used by Hypnos, that Rika managed to steal on her first mission with Cipher.

"We know the coordinates." Rika started. "If we can't get him out of there with Takato's blessing, then we'll do it ourselves."

_You are _so_ hot right now._

"Can we activate the generator without the terminals in the control room?" Ryo asked carefully.

Rika nodded, a flash of guilt appearing on her face again. "I copied the program we use onto your laptop, just in case."

Ryo scooped it off the floor, opening it up. The screen had a crack in it, but it was still usable. He adjusted the adapter on the generator and plugged it in. Rika sat down on the bed next to him, and he handed the computer to her.

He wasn't entirely impressed that she'd made a copy of that program onto Ryo's computer—without _telling_ Ryo, but that was an argument for another day. Rika grumbled, seeing the crack Ryo'd made on the screen.

"Ever hear of a stress ball?" she asked.

"Threw it through a window." Ryo lied absentmindedly, watching as Rika ran the program. It was a much more basic version than what they used in the real control room, but it had all the essentials, and that was all Ryo cared about.

"Renamon." Rika called quietly. In a flash, the golden fox was in corner of the room, silent as ever. "We're going after Kazu. You with me?"

"Always."

Ryo wanted to call Cyberdramon, but the big guy wasn't as obedient as Renamon, so he'd wait until he needed to, and focused his attention on entering the coordinates into the program. Since it was the model of portal generator that Hypnos used, it would take longer to open it up than what Ryo was used to, so he wanted to get as much of a start as he could.

But when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, he realized that he hadn't been the only one to be careless that day—Rika hadn't closed the door on her way in.

It was Henry.

"What do you want?" Ryo asked bluntly.

He was still pissed at Henry, for not siding with Ryo when he'd confronted Takato. Sure, Ryo hadn't been entirely professional about it, but he had expected a bit more passion on Henry's part in his reaction to one of his best friends in so much danger.

"The same thing you do." Henry answered.

"How much did you hear?" Ryo sighed. Even if he hadn't heard _anything_, surely he would recognize the generator that was attached to Ryo's computer.

"Somewhere around the source of Takato's black eye." Henry said thoughtfully.

"You _can't_ tell Takato—" Rika spoke softly.

"—I won't." Henry cut her off. "I'm going with you."

Ryo shot a look at Rika, who returned it in kind.

"If there's three of us, then one of us should go on backup—" Rika started.

"I'm _going_." Ryo cut her off. "I know the layout, where they'll be keeping him…and it's my fault he—I need to go."

The others seemed to accept that, and Ryo quickly finished entering the data they needed before grabbing a piece of paper from the ground, and a pen from the desk.

"I'm good in the field." Rika challenged.

"I know." Henry nodded. "But I've seen the layout, too. If we end up having to split up, that's going to count for something."

Ryo was scribbling down the layout as he remembered it—there were 13 floors, but the sixth, seventh, and ninth were all identical, as were the first and eighth, so it wasn't too awful. It was by no means to scale, but it might come in handy for whichever one of them decided to stay.

"What are you doing?" another voice called from the doorway.

Ryo looked up and saw Guardromon walk into the room.

"Will somebody _please_ close that door?" Ryo asked.

Guardromon took the liberty before repeating his original question. "What are you doing?"

Ryo glanced at Henry and then Rika, but it was Henry who answered the robot. "We're going after Kazu."

"Let me help." Guardromon said quickly.

Rika sounded awkward. "You're not exactly—stealth material…"

Guardromon didn't sound like he took any offense, or maybe he just didn't understand. Either way, his resolve was clear. "I can't abandon my partner."

_Now we're communicating._

"We have that in common." Ryo mused.

Henry and Rika looked at him, clearly worried. Ryo clarified his thoughts on the matter.

"Look at these hallways, right here." Ryo indicated a series of narrow hallways on several floors of the building. "Those hallways have nowhere to hide—if a guard comes, we _have_ to fight. Guardromon's the only digimon we have that can be seen."

Because Kazu's already been identified. If there were any reports of someone being attacked by a Terriermon, a Cyberdramon, or a Renamon, it would put suspicion on Henry, Ryo, or Rika. His friends nodded in agreement.

"So which one of you is coming with us?" Ryo asked.

Rika sighed. "I'll go on backup, _if_, Henry takes Renamon with him instead of Terriermon."

Henry and Ryo both nodded—Renamon could do more than any of the others could without being noticed.

"Now that that's settled, then—" Ryo nodded. "Let's go be heroic, huh?"

* * *

Getting into the base was easy—they did it just the way that Ryo had guided Kazu in a few hours before. Except since they were in a bit of a hurry, they didn't sit around waiting for guards on patrol to pass by—anything they saw got a dart in its back.

Fortunately, there weren't any Gekomon with those damned horns, so Ryo knew they didn't have to worry about those. Rika was doing fine on backup, considering she only had a quarter of the resources she'd have had on a real terminal.

They were leaving behind a lot of unconscious digimon—if they had to take down one on a floor, it meant they had to go knock out all of the others. They were leapfrogging—if Henry was clearing out the rest of a floor with Renamon, then Ryo was moving ahead with Guardromon, and vice versa.

They'd met up two floors before their destination.

"Just so you two know," Rika's voice came to him. "If either of you are identified—then I'm not going back to the real world either."

Ryo shared a glance with Henry, who slowly nodded. "Okay. Me neither." Henry agreed.

"Musketeer moment." Ryo snickered.

Of course, he agreed to it too. His friends were the only reason he fought to begin with—why he'd joined Cipher, and why he was risking his life breaking back into a facility. If he couldn't have them in the real world, he didn't _care_ about the real world.

As they approached the target, Henry's attention seemed to be elsewhere.

"What's up?" Ryo asked.

"If any human dies in there," Henry looked nervous. "Everything that everyone thinks we are—what they think we stand for—then it all becomes true."

A bitter truth, but not one they had any tiny bit of time to worry about. "Then we'd best not kill anyone, right?" Ryo replied, trying unsuccessfully to take Henry's mind off of it.

"Stop." Rika ordered.

The four promptly froze, Ryo looking around carefully—as long as the security footage was looping, they didn't have to worry about that—and there didn't seem to be any patrols.

Ryo thought she'd been talking about their conversation, but he recognized the hallway from what he saw from the security cameras earlier. They were there.

Henry crouched down, scurrying towards the door, pressing an ear against it.

"What's up?" Ryo asked quietly.

"Guys—we're not alone. Someone else is in the system."

_What?_

Someone else. If Hypnos had found them out, then they'd be monitoring the channel, and probably have identified all three of their voices.

"Looks like we don't get to go back to the real world after all." Ryo murmured glumly, deciding he'd worry about that _after_ they made the rescue.

"Guess not." Rika said, hiding whatever she was feeling. "Okay, looks like you might as well get ready for a fight, and—"

"—No." Henry interrupted, his voice barely a whisper. He suddenly looked to Ryo and the others. "It's Takato."

Ryo was stunned, but when Henry beckoned him over, he listened carefully—Henry was right. He could hear Takato inside, talking to Yamaki.

_What the hell's he doing?_

He had no idea what was going on, but he intended to find out what the hell Takato was doing, having a meeting with Yamaki. They needed to hear what was going on, and Rika was the one who could make it happen.

"Rika, can you relay the audio to us from the cameras in that room?" Ryo asked quietly.

"No." Rika answered promptly. "The audio's on a different channel, and I don't know how to hack into—"

She was cut off by Henry, who was staring at Ryo, apparently in favor of the idea. "Rika you can do this, you've done it before."

His girlfriend sounded more nervous than he'd heard her in a long time, maybe even since during the D-Reaper fight. "I don't think I can do this—"

"—We both know that's not true." Ryo reassured her. "And it's not like we have a choice. Come on, Rika, we have faith in you."

There was about thirty seconds of silence on Rika's side—during which Ryo _tried_ to listen in on Takato and Yamaki, but couldn't pick out anything except Kazu's name. He heard a faint static sound coming from his earpiece, which soon turned to a murmur, and then to a pair of voices.

_That's what I like about that girl._

"I think I got it." Rika reported.

Ryo and Henry shared a grin as the audio became clearer.

* * *

While the boys were only getting the audio, Rika herself was able to watch the whole thing—Kazu was strapped to something at the back of the room—he looked like he was unconscious. Rika could tell he wasn't dead from the fact that he hadn't broken down into data.

_At least that's on our side. Now what the hell is Takato doing in there?_

"So where is she?" Yamaki asked, his arms crossed.

Takato looked calm as ever. Hands in his back pockets, carelessly glancing at the four armed guards in the room—human guards. Armed. Guns—but they were just _talking_. Yamaki, the man who had singlehandedly made sure that Takato and Jeri would never be able to safely return to the real world—and they were standing in the same room, having a civilized conversation—talking about Jeri.

Rika's blood began to boil.

"She's safe." Takato shrugged. If he felt threatened, Rika couldn't tell.

Henry's and Ryo's voices came through the right ear of Rika's headset, while Takato and Yamaki were coming from the left.

"What's he _doing_ in there?" Henry whispered, though Rika was oblivious who he was addressing.

"Trouble in paradise?" Yamaki asked suddenly, cutting off Rika's chance of attempting to answer Henry's very worthwhile question.

Takato pulled his right hand from his pocket and gently touched the side of his face, where Rika and Ryo had both punched him.

"Oh, yeah, some of that good old-fashioned domestic bliss you always hear about." He gave a shrug. "Who knew, right?"

"What's he talking about?" Ryo asked.

"Black eye." Rika answered quickly, more interested in figuring out what was going on between the two.

"So if you didn't bring me _her_, then what _do_ you have?" Yamaki sounded more impatient.

Rika watched as Takato reached into his front pocket, and pulled out a small memory stick, which he tossed to Yamaki. It didn't look like anything special, but data was a tricky thing, so Rika had no clue what could be on it.

"And how much is here?" Yamaki said, rubbing the flash drive with his thumb and index finger.

_What are they talking about? Locations? Maps? Schematics?_

"Forty-eight percent." Takato answered.

"You can see how that's not exactly acceptable." Of the two, Yamaki was the one to first break the calm. "You've stolen a lot of money from my investors and I, and I want it back."

_Money_.

Rika realized that the memory stick must have contained the account numbers and passwords of where Takato had kept his share of the money they'd stolen—the rest had been split between Henry, Kazu, Rika, and Ryo during their missions.

"It's true, there _was_ a bit more, but I bought some of your more attractive employees some creative—'gifts' in your name." Takato explained. "I figured you'd enjoy the sexual harassment lawsuits."

"Cute." Yamaki said dryly.

"Yeah, I thought so." Takato nodded. "You know how it is—living underground, not a lot to do aside from online shopping—and you can't even order anything for yourself. Kinda sucks."

The visual Rika was getting was small, and grainy. Since she was monitoring off of a laptop instead of the terminals that were _built_ for it, she knew there would be sacrifices. Still, she wished she could make the security video larger without making it completely impossible to see.

"Have we figured out anything, other than the fact that Takato's gone _completely insane_?" Ryo asked. Rika almost felt like he was looking at her, while he was really just glancing at the security camera in the hall.

"There's guards in the room." Rika murmured, ready to stop talking the instant Yamaki or Takato started speaking. "Four of them—and they're armed…I don't know enough about guns, but it's definitely bigger than a pistol—but they're not treating Takato like he's any kind of threat—why are they doing that?"

She thought she saw Kazu's head roll to one side—maybe he was waking up.

"Is Kazu in there?" Henry asked.

"Yeah." She nodded, as if they could see her. "Unconscious—might be waking up, but even if he does, he looks pretty drugged up."

Yamaki took a few steps towards Takato, who held his ground. "I don't know…how can I tell you're serious about this?"

Takato didn't turn as Yamaki circled him suspiciously. "Because you know me. And you know I'm telling the truth—and now that you've _scanned_ me, you know I'm not armed."

_A deal…?_

"True." Yamaki nodded. "But I don't think I understand why the boy means so much to you—that you'd turn yourself in."

The two of them turned to Kazu for a moment, who had started moving, but barely.

"No, you don't understand it." Takato admitted. "And someone like you _never will_."

Ryo sounded stunned. "He's making a _trade_."

"_That's_ why he didn't want you going in after Kazu…" Rika caught on quietly.

"…because he had his _own_ suicidal plan to get Kazu out." Henry finished.

"We can't let him do this." Ryo growled. Rika knew he was probably feeling the same guilt that she felt—for doubting Takato's loyalty to his friends. "Do a sweep, check for the nearest power grid. Should be somewhere on the floor beneath us, right?"

Rika ran the check, wishing she had the fully-operational system at her disposal.

"Uh…" she murmured, speaking slowly as if it would speed the whole process up. "It _is._ What's up?"

"Give Henry directions—cut the lights in that room." Ryo explained. "When that happens, Guardromon, fill the room with smoke—enough to disorient them, not enough to asphyxiate them. Then break down the door, distract their fire, okay? Renamon, can you break those guns without them seeing you?"

"Of course." Rika's partner said confidently.

Rika knew that Renamon could do it, but she still found herself worrying.

"Rika, I'm gonna need you to guide me to Kazu, since I'll basically be blind in there. Be as exact as you can, okay?"

"But how are you guys planning on getting _out_?" Rika asked. "That plan only gets you all captured. If we open a portal, they'll be all over it."

It took five minutes for Hypnos to open up a portal, three using Cipher's generator. Rika had no idea how long it would take to open one using the prototype generator connected with Cipher's software.

"There could be a way to fix that." Henry spoke up. "If Rika triggers an alarm at the _top_ of the base—after I cut the lights, but _before _you storm the room, and orders all the guards up there over the speakers—all the guards will be drawn there first. It might buy us some time."

"Can you make that happen?" Ryo asked.

_I think so._

"Yeah." She put on her bravest face, and started the preparations for when the time came. She certainly had her work cut out for her. "Okay. I'll set off the alarms when the lights go out, and I'll open the portal where you guys are now—Henry, you get back upstairs once you're done, okay?"

"On it." Henry said, taking off down the hall, and appearing on one of the other camera feeds Rika was watching.

She took a deep breath, and got to work.

* * *

Ryo hadn't stood up, and was still kneeling next to the door, Renamon and Guardromon doing the same thing. He really hoped his plan would work—with the lights, the smoke, and Guardromon in the doorway, there'd be enough of a distraction for Renamon to get in and disarm them. Rika would cover all the other guards in the building, and Ryo would get Kazu. Of course, that still left Yamaki and Takato, but Ryo would make a decision of how to handle Yamaki when the time came.

He looked at the robot.

"How long will it take you to smoke-up that room?" Ryo asked him.

"Not longer than a few seconds." Guardromon answered.

"The bullets in those guns were meant to kill things made of flesh, not metal. They can't do any real damage to you." He assured him. "Keep your head—if you go straight after Kazu, it's all over, so you leave him to me, alright?"

Guardromon nodded. "I'll do my best."

"I have no doubt you will." Ryo flashed a smile, before turning to Renamon. "You know where the guards are—these guys are trained, but they won't shoot at something they can't see, especially in a small room like that."

"I know what I have to do." Renamon said coolly. "You don't have to worry about me, concentrate on your own goal."

Sound advice. He could hear Rika guiding Henry to the power grid. He knew that as soon as Henry got there, it wouldn't be long. Ryo _wanted_ to concentrate on his own goal, but he wasn't quite sure what his goal was. Grab Kazu? Stop Takato? Take out Yamaki? He'd play it by ear. Even if Takato wasn't ready to hurt any Hypnos employees, Ryo was. Yamaki _deserved_ it.

"I'm in position." Henry reported through the headset.

"Okay. On my mark, the lights get cut, the alarms sound, and the portal activation starts up. Ready?" Rika confirmed. Ryo just nodded. "Mark."

Most of the lights in the hallway went out, but Ryo could tell from the darkness in the crack at the bottom of the door—and from the confused murmurs of those inside—that the lights in the room had all gone out too. He took a step back, and nodded to Guardromon.

"Attention, all personnel please report to floor one." A voice called over the hallway's speakers. It was Rika who was talking, but her voice was disguised. "Intruder detected on floor one. I repeat—"

The robot _kicked_ the door down, his chest, and most of his joints opening up and a black smoke _bursting_ out. Ryo curled up at the sound of the gunfire, and took a deep breath before too much of the smoke started to flow back into the hallway. Though Guardromon was being shot, and though he fumbled, he didn't stop blasting smoke into the room.

Ryo nodded to Renamon, who promptly disappeared, and he heard the amount of gunfire quickly reduce to coming from fewer and fewer guns—and then it stopped entirely.

He charged in, an arm covering his face, not allowing himself to breathe.

"Keep going—" Rika's voice was his only guide. "Turn a little to your right—good, four more steps, and—stop."

Ryo was close enough that he could see through the smoke. Though as he took his arm off his face to fumble with the straps restraining Kazu, he started to cough, just like every other breathing thing in the room. He frantically clawed at the strap around his stomach, before finally loosening it and working on the one restraining his chest.

"Three minutes, eighteen seconds 'til the portal." Rika reported over the headset, before she returned to her fake voice over the speakers repeating the message.

_Almost—there!_

Kazu basically _fell_ on Ryo, and in addition to the fact that it took Ryo off guard, Kazu was heavier than he looked. Ryo grabbed him, putting Kazu's arm over his shoulder, and started to walk him out of the door, feeling lightheaded from the fact that he'd been breathing smoke for about a minute.

His stomach clenched when he realized that the figure in front of him climbing to his feet was Yamaki, still coughing, and undoubtedly turning to stare Ryo in the face.

At least, that's what Ryo thought, until he heard a loud _clank_ and Yamaki fell face-first away from Ryo and Kazu, and Ryo saw Takato's form standing above the body, a piece of metal in his hand that Ryo assumed was a piece of gun that Renamon had broken apart.

Cipher's leader looked as shocked as he'd be expected to, but said nothing, and to Ryo's appreciation, put Kazu's other arm over his shoulder, and helped Ryo carry him out of the room.

"Two minutes, thirty-two seconds." Rika reported. "Damn it! The guards are heading towards you!"

_Must have stopped listening._

Ryo turned to his left, and saw Henry rushing towards them, looking anxious.

"What are you guys _doing_ here?" Takato finally coughed. His face looked as Ryo's probably did—completely filthy from all the smoke and ash.

"How much time do we have left before they get here?" Ryo asked Rika, focusing on what was at hand.

"They'll be there about forty seconds before the portal opens." Rika answered glumly.

_Shitshitshitshit_—

He needed to buy them time. Not even a minute was all they needed—what could—

Ryo had an idea-moment. He ducked, backing away from Kazu, while Henry stepped forward to take hold of him. The smoke in the room had started to clear—probably some emergency venting system that finally kicked in—and Ryo saw what he was looking for. One of the unconscious humans—more importantly, his belt, which had several grenades on it. Ryo hadn't quite handled anything like that before, so he just took the guy's belt off rather than risk blowing them both up trying to remove just the grenades.

He carried the strap back out to Henry, holding it out.

"Are these explosives, or gas?"

"Explosives." Henry answered.

Henry understood architecture, even in the digital world, where physics didn't always mean as much as they normally would. He was their best chance of knowing where to place those things where they could cause just the right amount of damage.

"Think you can seal up the stairwell without crushing us?" Ryo asked hopefully.

Henry looked genuinely disturbed. "If I can't, it's not like I'll be alive long enough to feel bad about it."

_Reassuring, really._

Ryo handed the belt to Henry, who took it uneasily before rushing to the stairwell.

"Renamon, go with him." Rika cut in as the fox followed after Henry. "Ninety-two seconds. Ninety."

Ryo struggled to position himself to help Takato manage Kazu's weight. He eventually gave up as Guardromon took the bulk.

"Nobody _that_ size should be _this_ heavy." Ryo grunted.

It was probably just the lack of clean air, but it was still something to tease Kazu about if they made it out alive.

"Why are you here?" Takato repeated his earlier question.

Ryo glared at him. "I should be asking you—what the hell are you doing, meeting Yamaki like this?"

"I told you I wasn't going to leave him here—" Takato started, but was cut off by the floor shaking—an explosion, no doubt.

"So you were going to just turn yourself in?" Ryo asked indignantly. "The things they would have done to you—what the _hell_ were you thinking?"

"I _wasn't_ thinking." Takato retorted. "Not about that."

Though it was nowhere near quiet—explosions, alarms and such, it was still quiet enough between Takato and Ryo to be uncomfortably tense.

"Sixty seconds." Rika updated him, breaking the silence—at least for Ryo. Takato wasn't being transmitted to.

Ryo wanted to still be mad at Takato, but he was having a more and more difficult time with it. He was going to trade himself for Kazu. It was noble—stupid, and shortsighted, but noble.

The next explosion tossed Ryo onto his backside. The guards would have been coming soon, unless that explosion took out the stairwell. He turned to the hallway Henry and Renamon had disappeared down, and saw them quickly return, Henry flashing a grin and a thumbs up.

"Thirty seconds until the portal." Rika continued. "Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven…"

"We okay?" Ryo asked Henry hopefully.

"We're okay." Henry smiled. "Stairwell's down—nobody was on it. It'll buy us the time we need."

"Time for what?" Takato asked.

"Portal's opening in twenty seconds." Ryo explained quickly.

Henry's face went pale. "What about Yamaki and the guards?"

Ryo was tempted to go finish Yamaki off, but couldn't bring himself to. Not yet.

"Ventilation systems have started, the smoke'll clear. They'll be fine once they hitch their own portal out of here."

"Ten. Nine, eight—" Rika reported.

"Get ready." Ryo nodded to Takato, who looked back down the hallway nervously, as if expecting more guards to come rushing in and spoil the moment.

"Five." Rika called as the feedback on their communications usually did when they opened a portal—getting louder. "Four—three, _two, one!_"

And it opened, in the middle off the hallway. It was quiet, though it was completely screwing up his communication line with Rika, so he took his headset off. Ryo'd seen a whole lot of portals, but at that time it was the most inviting thing he'd ever set his eyes on. He looked to Takato, who stepped inside it with Guardromon.

It looked strange from the side view—like they just disappeared.

Renamon was the next to step in, while Ryo found himself standing next to Henry.

"Ladies first." Ryo taunted him.

"Yup." Henry agreed.

Ryo felt a pressure on his back as he realized Henry'd pushed him in, and before he could react, he was back in his room—back at Cipher's base.

Specifically, he was on the floor, where he remained since Henry landed on him an instant later.

He was in pain, and he was lightheaded, and he was hurt, and he was tired.

But it didn't stop him from grinning like an idiot—because they'd actually _done it_.

* * *

Ryo knocked on the door—it wasn't actually _closed_, so it slowly opened from the impact.

"Come on in." Jeri called.

He stepped in. She was leaning over the side of the bed—at least she was as Ryo walked in, though she lifted the tray of soup and bread off of Kazu, and placed it at the side of the room.

"Ooh." Ryo grinned. "Free soup—that's worth it right there."

Jeri flashed a small smile at him. "I'll give you guys some time."

Ryo was taken aback as she hugged him, but he placed an arm around her slowly, too. He had no idea how much she knew—about Takato's plan, that is. But it was water under the bridge, so to speak. They were all safe, and that's what was important.

She left the room, and Ryo heard a quiet _click_ of the door closing.

"How you feeling?" Ryo asked.

Kazu rolled his head towards him. "Like I was mauled by a gorilla." He concluded.

"Sounds about right." Ryo snickered. "I'm surprised you didn't pick an animal more insulting to Yamaki."

"Mauled by a—" Kazu paused, looking thoughtful. "I don't know, a duck?"

"A duck?" Ryo actually laughed. "I think they might have caused some more serious damage than we thought."

"Well he's got that long neck." Kazu argued defensively. "And I'm all sleep-deprived and everything."

Ryo knew he was right, and though he personally would have used 'donkey', he just let it go. "So how are you, duck-factor aside?"

"Good." He nodded. "Jeri's taking good care of me."

Ryo wandered around the room, looking at all the random things Kazu had there. Some school textbooks. A guitar Ryo had reason to believe was out-of-tune, laptop—it was all Kazu had anymore. He'd been identified by Yamaki—he didn't get the option of going back to the real world—not anymore.

"I didn't tell them anything." Kazu said suddenly. Ryo turned to look at him, curious. "Yamaki, and the guys at Hypnos. I didn't tell them anything."

"Never entered my mind you did." Ryo shrugged. He had no idea what they'd done to him, but they _had_ tortured him—Ryo didn't _want_ to know how, exactly.

A pause.

"I didn't think you guys would come for me." Kazu said quietly.

Ryo leaned against the dresser. "I promised I'd look out for you. I'm just sorry it—that it took me so long."

"What?"

He wasn't sure if Kazu had realized it yet—the fact that Hypnos knew who he was. "They know who you are—and that you're working with Cipher…you can't go back to the real world."

Or communicate with anyone there. Not his friends, not his family—nobody.

"I know." Kazu nodded. "But I'm still glad you came for me…thank you."

It felt like a weight had been lifted—knowing that Kazu didn't hate him—didn't blame him. Relief wasn't something he'd expected to feel back at the beginning of the day.

"I'll go find Jeri." Ryo said, standing up. "I mean, we keep talking, it's only gonna lead to a hug, and it just might get awkward."

"Good call." Kazu agreed, as Ryo opened the door.

While he couldn't be entirely sure, he thought he heard Kazu say something quietly to himself as Ryo stepped out of the room:

"I totally picked the best teammate."

Takato's room was right across the hall, and was most likely where he'd find Jeri—as he expected, she was the one who opened it when he knocked.

"All yours." Ryo assured her. She smiled and went back to tend to Kazu.

Ryo was ready to go back to his own room when Takato spoke up from his desk. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Ryo bit his lip, in which the swelling had gone down—and closed the door behind Jeri before he stood in front of Takato's desk. "Only if I get to ask the first question."

Takato set his book down. "Shoot."

He went for the obvious: "Why didn't you tell us what you were going to do?"

Takato closed his eyes, covering his face with his hands for a moment as he took a deep breath as he leaned back in his chair. "Because I knew you'd try to stop me."

True—they _had_.

"What makes you so sure about that one?" Ryo challenged, however true it was. "What with that little, uh, _spat_ we had earlier."

Takato shrugged. "Because I know you."

Also true. Pompous, and arrogant, but still true.

"Fair enough." Ryo admitted. "So what did you want to ask me?"

"I didn't want to _ask_ you anything." Takato straightened his back. "I wanted to thank you—not for the punching thing, but—for going in there—for going after Kazu, and stopping me in the process. I'm very grateful."

Ryo was never very good at mutual apologies—he always wound up feeling guilty and awkward.

"I'm sorry I reacted the way I did earlier." Ryo said quickly, trying to treat it as if it was pulling a band-aid off quickly. "I should have tried to listen to you."

Takato winced. "Me too. I guess we'll just have to try to trust each other more."

Ryo nodded. Several seconds passed in complete silence. "I—I should probably go lay down. Been a long day."

"Okay." Takato nodded. "You crashing here tonight, or heading back to the real world?"

"Probably just a nap, then head out." Ryo replied. It was still early, however tired he was. "Probably make some appearances somewhere with Rika."

"Alright. I'll catch you later." Takato said, giving a slight wave.

"Yeah." Ryo murmured. "Later."

As he started back to his room, he grumbled to himself at the realization that he'd have to clean up the mess he'd made earlier. Or maybe not. He'd just lay on top of whatever was there—just _not_ in the mood to clean and tidy.

Naturally, he was more than a little surprised to find his room spotless—until he saw Rika folding some clothes and placing them in the dresser.

"You _cleaned_?" Ryo grinned as Rika gave a little shrug and a half-smile. "You didn't have to do this, you know."

"Yeah, but if I didn't, then you never would, and we'd start getting mice and bugs and stuff crawling all over the base—it just wouldn't be a very good time." Rika teased him.

"Thanks." Ryo said sincerely.

"Yeah, well, don't thank me just yet." Rika looked hesitant. "I couldn't fix that damn hole in the wall you made."

_Right. That._

"It's okay, you didn't need to—" Ryo took a few steps forward and then looked around the corner—

—only to see the large, glossy Creed poster on his wall, covering the hole.

"_Creed_?" Ryo's jaw nearly dropped. "What did I do to _you_?"

Rika's held her hands up as if surrendering. "Hey, nobody's bragging here. I was only in the real world for like a minute, and it was the only one in the garbage."

Ryo scoffed. "Ya _think_? It's _Creed_."

"Yeah, well, that's what you get for knocking a hole in the wall in the first place." She challenged.

He was at a loss for words to use as an argument. "Do I _have_ to keep it?"

"Yep. Poster stays." Rika nodded as she sat down on the bed. "Maybe the thought about their dull, repetitive, boring music will stop you from overreacting next time."

_Click_.

"_You_ hit Takato too!" Ryo suddenly recalled, Rika's eyes widening. "I'm gonna go buy you a Dixie Chicks poster for you room, you big spaz!"

"Wh—but that's not—" Rika stammered, before finally blurting it out. "No!"

"Then the poster goes." Ryo said smugly.

"Fine, you big buzzkill." Rika pouted as he pulled it off—revealing the fully-repaired wall underneath. He turned to Rika for an explanation. "Henry fixed it." She added simply.

Ryo snickered to himself. "You're such a bully."

He managed to take her by surprise when he lunged at her, tickling her relentlessly.

"No fair!" she gasped though her fits of laughter as she flailed. "Okay, okayokayokayokay, stop—you win."

Usually he took no prisoners, but he sat up, as she did beside him. He'd thought he'd had his fill of it after Kazu and Takato, but it happened again. Silence.

This time, Rika broke it. "I'm proud of you, you know."

He let himself feel a little pride of his own from her encouragement. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She repeated. "You were amazing today."

He gave her a little nudge with his shoulder. "You weren't too bad yourself. Broke through those security cameras like it was nothing."

"Oh, well I _know_ I'm amazing." She countered with a grin which faded to a smile. "So if you're not too tired and cranky, want to go grab some dinner?"

He _was_ tired, but he didn't have to think twice. "Absolutely."

* * *

So, yeah, things'll generally be lighter from here on out. Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!

Review, read Jared Head's "The Silent Project", and maybe even review that, too!

-N


	3. Interlude: Rika and Ryo

Rika poked at her salad, if it could be called that. It's a freaking _mountain_ of olives.

Okay, so perhaps it wasn't quite that bad, but there were still enough that she didn't want to touch them, or anything near them. She'd ordered no olives, but they brought them anyways. She'd asked for Balsamic Vinaigrette, they'd brought her Greek Feta.

With her status as a popular young socialite, people were always trying to find ways to make her look bad. It was likely just an honest mistake, but she knew asking to have the order replaced would probably be stretched into some tabloid article about how much of a catty diva she was, and that wasn't something she felt energetic enough to deal with.

Across the table, Ryo seemed to have been enjoying his entrée until he seemed to notice something behind her. Stopping in place, a piece of heavily-marinated pork dropped from his fork to his plate. She didn't need to turn around, because she heard the news channel's theme track playing from the large TV mounted behind her, on the other side of the restaurant. It was gonna be some piece on how horrible and dangerous the Cipher organization was.

She saw him put down his fork quickly, flashing her a sad smile afterwards. She knew he hated the stories as much as she did.

_On the plus side, it's a reason to get out of here._

Rika nodded to him in silent agreement, and both stood up, trying not to make eye contact with the scattered people who she knew had been watching them throughout the meal. While she put on her coat—well, a short black denim half-jacket—Ryo tossed some money on the table; enough to both pay for the meals, as well as a generous tip for that great service they didn't get.

She took his arm when he offered it, and they left quietly.

The walk, too, was mostly silent. But at least they didn't have to pretend to be happy. It had been two weeks since Kazu was identified as an operative for Cipher—as a traitor to the country. Kazu could no longer return to the real world. Like Ryo, she'd had to put out statements about the incident—to go on the air teary-eyed and beg him to turn himself in. At least the tears weren't hard to fake.

Rika felt so damn bad for him. Just like Takato and Jeri. She tried not to think about it, but it never worked. And she tried not to talk about it—even with Ryo—because she knew that sooner or later, they'd both be in the same position as the others.

In the sixteen days since Kazu's capture, rescue, and essential banishment, Rika and Ryo hadn't heard from him—Takato and Jeri had decided it would be best for the remaining three real-world members to lay low for a while. No missions, no visits to the digital world, and no communication.

She really wanted to know how Kazu was doing, but knew that Ryo was probably even more anxious. After all, it was been Ryo who had been monitoring Kazu when he was captured.

Of course, everyone was worried about how Kenta was handling everything, too. Because he hadn't been brought into Cipher, all he got was the stories from the news, and the public announcements from Hypnos. But since Rika and Ryo were both usually present at Hypnos's press conferences—often even helping give them—they both assumed that they were the last people Kenta wanted to see. Henry was the only one who could talk to him without giving himself away, and neither Rika nor Ryo had had a chance to talk to Henry safely, which was another source of the stress.

What Rika really needed was a mission. Breaking into some complex, stealing some top-secret crap. Something that would take her mind off of things, and hurt Hypnos.

"Well, we still need to find some dinner." Ryo said finally. "Ideas?"

"We could make something?" Rika suggested. She paused, wishing she could retract her statement as she realized that the grocery stores would probably all be closed.

"Uh, yeah, we could try, I guess?" Ryo said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

Rika winced. "There's nothing resembling food in your apartment right now, is there?"

She knew it was a question worth asking—even though Ryo was a great cook, he almost never made anything, as they both had enough money that they could go out for whatever meals they wanted. He considered the question for a few moments before he gave his answer.

"There's peanut butter." He replied seriously.

"Any bread to go with that, Grandmaster Cook?" Rika challenged.

"None to speak of." He confirmed. "Well, I guess there _was_ some, but it probably can't really be called bread anymore. It's evolved beyond that though."

She wasn't sure if he was kidding or not, but suppressed a shudder when she realized he probably wasn't. "Why do you keep moldy bread?"

"_I'm_ not touching it." Ryo raised his hands in protest. "I stopped looking in that cupboard after it assimilated a full can of pasta into it. We've got a truce for the time being—it doesn't bother me; I don't bother it."

Rika couldn't help but grin at the thought of Ryo coming to that arrangement. "A mold monster with a hunger for Chef Boyardee? I can see why you're scared of it."

"It's just a tactical retreat." Ryo scoffed.

"And here I thought you'd go insane living on your own."

"It _is _a big apartment…" he mused.

Rika wondered how he actually fared living there. It was a two-bedroom place, and although Ryo was popular, but nobody at school could _really_ know him, so she doubted he had many people over. Besides, Ryo was a very social creature. Must have been difficult for him to have to keep so many people at bay.

Lying to Yamaki came naturally, with him being an evil bastard and all. Lying to friends was a lot less satisfying.

Without any further agreement or opposition, they ended up at Ryo's apartment.

Rika hadn't been there nearly as often as people thought—the majority of their time together was either public appearances, or in the digital world. It was an open-concept apartment—it was nicer than most other 17-year-olds could afford, but not extravagant. Big living area, small kitchen and dining areas, two bedrooms—or rather, one bedroom, and one random-stuff room. Ryo had to pay for the apartment from the money he made _legally_—all the Hypnos-public-relations crap. The _illegally_-obtained money from all the Cipher-spy crap was likely in a similar situation as Rika's own money—trickling out of an account to buy little things, like salads covered in olives and the _wrong damn dressing_.

Ryo tossed his jacket onto the chair in the kitchen area before leaning against the kitchen bar, looking thoughtful. Rika approached the cupboards and quietly prayed that Ryo was joking about having no food. The first cabinet had a can of crushed tomatoes and a few mugs. The second had a few cans of energy drink and a box of band-aids.

She opened the third just as Ryo turned and tried to protest a moment too late.

As it turned out, Ryo hadn't been embellishing very much at all about the bread. It had taken over almost all of the bottom shelf, and was growing in a shape that gave Rika the impression that it had been growing outwards from an entire breadbox. Rika yelped at the sight and smell, closing the cupboard door quickly and firmly. If it hadn't been so terrifying, she'd have done a double-take.

A beat passed before Rika spoke.

"Do you think it saw me?" she asked in an exaggerated whisper.

"I wouldn't worry about it." Ryo declared matter-of-factly. "Breadmonsters don't like redheads like I do."

She couldn't help but grin, knowing she was probably walking right into a trap. "That so?"

"Of course! I mean, have you _seen_ Jeri?" He gave a wolf whistle.

"Oh, shut up." She pretended to pout, poking him in the side, squawking in surprise. Ryo was at times, one of the most powerful beings in the digital world—but he was still hilariously ticklish.

"Hey, um…" Ryo said thoughtfully. "Can I ask you something?"

"You can." Rika answered cautiously, wondering what might give Ryo pause before speaking for once in his life.

"Do you feel as weird as I do about this?" he asked. "Us, I mean? That we're here?"

Her stomach clenched. She and Ryo had tried dating before the whole Cipher thing, and it hadn't worked out. Being undercover criminals reignited that romance. But they'd grown beyond that—hadn't they?

It was true that she'd felt strange the last two weeks. But long before that, she and Ryo had talked about purpose—how they felt a lot more meaning when they had an important goal to work towards. Since they'd been ordered to keep their distance from Takato and the others, she'd become agitated. But it wasn't from not having a purpose—it was from there _being_ a purpose, but not being able to do anything because they were _benched_.

But however weird she felt, she didn't feel weird about _them_. On a regular basis, Rika lied to millions of people about a cause she was on the other side of, stole classified information from a government-supported corporation, and ran the risk of being captured, tortured, or killed. But there was Ryo. Even with everything she was going through—that _they_ were going through, Ryo was _always_ there for her.

_Still won't say it though_.

It had started as a running joke, but had evolved into an uncomfortable recurrence—neither of them would drop the L-Bomb.

"No." Rika said carefully. "I—I don't feel weird about us. I actually…happen to be very much—_into_ us. Are you—not?"

Ryo looked at her, the confusion plain on his face as she stammered her way though it—a second later, shock. "Oh—_oh! _No, not _us, _us."

He looked as embarrassed as Rika felt.

_That could have been so, _so _much more awkward._

Fortunately, their mutual crippling fear of admitting how deep their feelings ran wasn't their only dumb little quirk as a couple—

"Freezing that one." Rika declared.

Rika was safe from that discomfort for the next thirty days—they'd agreed that when one of them made an ass out of themselves, they could freeze the distress from it for the next month before the other was allowed to tease them about it. Things were generally less humiliating after some time had passed. She'd only had to do it once before, when she tried cooking for Ryo and gave him food poisoning. Ryo'd had to use it twice—once when he came back from a mission smelling like rotting beef, and another time when she overheard him on the Cipher communications channel seeking relationship advice—from Kazu of all people.

"Frozen." Ryo agreed quietly, still looking embarrassed. She wouldn't be surprised if he never teased her about that one.

_If he feels the same way about you_.

"As I was saying," Ryo continued, giving a little cough. "I feel bad that we're just going about our days, when the others are…I mean, even Henry's still undercover like we are, right? But he's _doing_ something. He's helping. We're just turning more people against Cipher, when…"

He trailed off, but didn't need to finish—Rika understood. "I know what you mean. But—Takato said to just sit tight and do whatever Hypnos says for now."

"When do you think they'll call?" he asked quietly.

Rika sighed. "Wish I knew."

Ryo gave a grim smile. "Do you think they will?"

She met his eyes. They were always the most intense shade of blue. And Ryo was always so full of charm and confidence, that all it took from him was a look and they'd be inspired. She wasn't used to him being unsure—for _him_ to be needing _her_ for a change. She wanted to be there for him. More than anything.

Ryo was blaming himself for what happened to Kazu.

"Ryo, what happened wasn't your fault."

He gave a shrug. "You tried to warn me. If I'd looked at my phone—"

"You were focusing on the mission, which is what you were _supposed_ to do." Rika said without a shred of doubt in her voice.

_I'm apparently not as good at this whole inspiring thing as he is._

"He got caught because of me." Ryo murmured quietly.

"He also got _rescued_ because of you." Rika reminded him. "You saved him—_and_ Takato. Got them both right out from under Yamaki's nose—I mean, how badass was _that_?"

She purposefully neglected to mention that Ryo going into rescue mode was one of the hottest things she'd ever seen. It was an indisputable fact—just not one relevant to the current situation.

"They'll call." Rika reassured him. "Besides, you're the only one who knows how to work the DVR. They barely have a choice."

Rika saw that he was trying to suppress a smile—whether it was because she'd actually cheered him up, or because he was trying not to laugh at her lame joke, she wasn't sure, but if he was smiling, she was counting it as a victory.

"For the time being, we're free, and we can do what we want." Rika said secretively. "And you still owe me dinner, so we should start there."

"Pizza." Ryo said with more confidence than she'd heard from him in the last sixteen days. And a movie. With aliens."

"I think that's the best idea of all time." Rika nodded with a playful smirk. "I'll see what's on the TV."

As she attempted to head to the living area, she felt him grab her hand and pull her back to him, close.

His eyes had that look about them again. Ryo was Ryo again.

"Have I told you how amazing you are?" he asked, grinning.

"I'm not sure…I hear it from _so_ many people, I mean…" She pretended to look pensive. "Maybe you better just say it anyways."

Her hands were on his shoulders, and she felt his on her waist.

"You, Rika, are the coolest, most talented, sweetest, _best_ girlfriend ever."

He kissed her. She leant into him, one hand through his hair, the other on his chest. She felt his heart racing, and felt her own beat faster. If there'd been any doubt in her mind, she knew then—she loved him. Whatever they would face in their war on Hypnos—and possibly the rest of the country, she wasn't scared, because she knew he'd be right there, too.

After they broke off their kiss, he still held her tightly, and he rested his forehead on hers, their eyes only an inch apart.

"I'd like to add that you're also a pretty great kisser." He noted with a coy smile.

"I'm better than you at video games, too." Rika reminded him.

He pulled back a bit, though neither took their hands off of each other. "Sure you are." He said with a patronizing tone.

Rika had completely destroyed him the last time they'd played. "Forgetting that whole 25-to-6 debacle? That's cute."

Ryo shrugged, "I let you win."

"Ah, of course…" Rika played along. "We should probably set that up again so I can teach your little ass some respect."

They kept chiding each other for some time. But neither of them made any effort to leave the other's embrace—and Rika was quite happy with that.

* * *

So, this was the first of a little subseries for Cipher. The idea is that they'll take a look at some of the character relationships at a more relaxed pace. I'm also hoping that there'll be little-to-no story development in them, so we can focus on the characters. Consequently, you can skip right over them and not worry about having missed anything—they'll be a big source of fluff/romance/banter/friendfics/whatnot.

Essentially, they're one-shots set in the Cipher frame.

Main purpose is since these aren't full chapters, they're a lot shorter, and I can hopefully patch some of these together when I've hit a block on the main stories. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed it!

Please review!

-N

Afterthought, but I'll love you forever if you could also check out Jared Head's 'The Silent Project', and DarkFox2009's 'A New Beginning'. You can get to each from my Favourite Stories. :)


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